Alright, this saturday, Sept. 7th, Australia votes for a new federal government. I don't know much about it since I pretty much live as far from Australia as one can, but it's always interesting to watch since Australia is such a unique microcosm with its own unique political landscape. Basically it's Rudd vs Abbott, and the way I understand it people generally like Rudd better as a person because Abbott is an asshole, but people also believe a conservative government is better for the country despite its asshole leader, but I may be wrong about this. What I do know from reading the news is that Abbott is ahead in the polls. Will be interesting to watch.

Roughly two weeks later, Sept. 22nd, it's Germany's turn, also to vote for a new federal government. This is unfortunately far less interesting because the result seems so predictable. The majority of Germans are happy with Angela Merkel, and the only thing that will be interesting to see is which coalition her christian democrat party will lead. This depends on whether her current coalition partner, the free democrats (*puke*) make it above the 5% necessary to get into parliament. I hope not. If the free democrats fail, it's either a "grand coalition" with the social democrats (who suck terribly at this year's campaign and who's candidate is a joke) or something we have never had before, a coalition between conservatives and the green party. We'll see.

So, let's discuss. Who do you want to win and why, and who do you think will win and why?

abbott is definitely going to be a bad footnote in australia's history. there are a couple of factors that have basically already cemented him:

- the labor party is so fractured it's depressing, they're just unreliable. despite having better policies they're fairly unlikely to get much done.- rupert murdoch (news corp CEO) controls a large portion of the australian media, and wants kevin rudd ousted because the current government's NBN (national broadband network) plan will essentially signal the end of murdoch's cable tv service. so he's launched a massive smear campaign in the media. and because voting is compulsory, this forces average idiots (you know, people who are generally not so educated/interested in politics, but lean to the right on immigration issues and the like) to choose as well. and when you get all your news from murdoch, it's a clear-cut decision.- we're also being force-fed this idea (by the entire media, it would seem) that we're on the brink of economic collapse, and only a super-frugal conservative government can save us from an otherwise inevitable ruin. the mines are about to close, china is about to implode and australia will fall with it, an influx of refugees/immigrants is bleeding us dry, etc etc. it's all sensationalist hyperbole, but remember that every prick that can barely count to 10 must vote.

the only things that might save us from the horror of an abbott government are:- he's personally far more unpopular than rudd. his misogyny has been pretty well-broadcast, he's been cast as a fundamentalist christian, he's been caught out numerous times with no knowledge of matters at hand (he offers only criticism, no solutions) and makes serious gaffes in the media every few days.- almost 20% of the population is (according to some stats i saw yesterday) still undecided, and some 70% of them, when pressed, said they would vote labor. i'm assuming these are people (like myself) who refuse to vote for abbott, aren't particularly sold on labor, but also understand the futility of voting for smaller parties.- there is an abundance of smaller fringe parties this time around, probably more than usual. i'm personally hoping the votes spread out among them, and the greens in particular.

For Germany I hope the Pirate party gets a good bunch of votes. And else I also hope for a stronger SPD (social democrats) and some less votes for Merkel (CDU). I think many people don't vote for the CDU because they like the party or their program, but because Merkel is doing it completely unpredictably but satisfying anyway ("Mutti macht's schon").I personally don't dislike the candidate from the SPD (Peer Steinbrück) - Imho he got a lot of unfair bashing from the press. He was inofficially labeled the "bad guy" who always did something stupid and the journalists were always waiting for him to say something remotely unfitting; then the shitstorm began again... So while I won't vote for him, I still hope they'll get some more votes than the last polls predicted.And for the FDP (liberals), AfD (alternative for Germany) and NPD (nazis) I hope they'll rot below the 5% barrier.

Well, the last two elections in my opinions have shown that half the SPD voters don't actually vote for the SPD for their program but vote for them for candidates like Gerhard Schröder, Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt. Sorry to say this, but Peer Steinbrück is a few leagues below that.

I'm all in a favor of people using the Wahlomat and voting for whatever party turns out to be the best match. I think the majority of Germans isn't even as stupid clueless as our election results seem to suggest, but their problem is that they rely on gut feelings rather than facts. Too few people care about what the parties have in their manifestos, and much less care what the parties have actually done of that once they got elected when they make their decisions. Not that there's much difference between the four "major" parties anyways. Licking capitalist's buttholes just comes in the flavours lemon, mint, strawberry and licorice now. Of course one of the biggest problems remains to be the high percentage of people that don't vote. I wonder when was the last time one of our governments was actually backed by the votes of a majority of adult Germans.

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Metantoine wrote:

If Summoning is the sugar of fantasy metal, is Manowar the bacon?

CorpseFister wrote:

Personally, I prefer to know nothing of the esoteric hierarchy of MA and the profane rituals required to attain rank.

I really don't understand how anyone can vote for Kevin Rudd in this coming election. He was forced out by his own party just a few years ago, at which point he was widely disliked by just about everybody. The Labour government is a farce, with Question Time becoming the third great soap series after Home and Away and Neighbours. The Labour government in only 6 months managed to turn a record surplus into a record deficit, which stands at something like $70 billion. They've also created something of a retarded precedent in which they choose to vote out incumbant prime ministers for their own preferred choice, rather than the voting publics choice. After the recent "black hole" fiasco, I'm not sure how anyone can trust this guy to run the treasury, let alone the country. At any rate, on the off chance he does get in, we'll probably end up with Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister by 2016.

I really don't understand how anyone can vote for Kevin Rudd in this coming election.

Personally, my vote is more often determined by who I don't want rather than who I do. If there's a lot of people voting for Rudd this time, it's only because they dislike Abbott so much and you only really have those two choices.

I really don't understand how anyone can vote for Kevin Rudd in this coming election. He was forced out by his own party just a few years ago, at which point he was widely disliked by just about everybody. The Labour government is a farce, with Question Time becoming the third great soap series after Home and Away and Neighbours. The Labour government in only 6 months managed to turn a record surplus into a record deficit, which stands at something like $70 billion. They've also created something of a retarded precedent in which they choose to vote out incumbant prime ministers for their own preferred choice, rather than the voting publics choice. After the recent "black hole" fiasco, I'm not sure how anyone can trust this guy to run the treasury, let alone the country. At any rate, on the off chance he does get in, we'll probably end up with Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister by 2016.

pretty much i will vote for him because he isnt Abbott

for anyone who doesnt know about him he is Australia's answer to George W Bush

Yeah I'm not sold on Rudd or Labor, since as Turner said, they're an absolute mess and fuck up a LOT of shit/achieve nothing, but Abbott is generally awful in every single front, (social issues, environmental stuff, they've even run the economic strengths I find the party to have into the ground) as is the rest of the post Howard/Costello Liberal party, so I can't really do much than go the other way from them.

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Naamath wrote:

No comments, no words need it, no BM, no compromise, only grains in her face.

I really don't understand how anyone can vote for Kevin Rudd in this coming election. He was forced out by his own party just a few years ago, at which point he was widely disliked by just about everybody. The Labour government is a farce, with Question Time becoming the third great soap series after Home and Away and Neighbours. The Labour government in only 6 months managed to turn a record surplus into a record deficit, which stands at something like $70 billion. They've also created something of a retarded precedent in which they choose to vote out incumbant prime ministers for their own preferred choice, rather than the voting publics choice. After the recent "black hole" fiasco, I'm not sure how anyone can trust this guy to run the treasury, let alone the country. At any rate, on the off chance he does get in, we'll probably end up with Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister by 2016.

Sorry but Australia is so horrible that utter self-destruction is presumably the only thing it can do to save itself. Australia is quite possibly the worst first world country in all of existence. I know I am repeating myself a bit here, but seemingly just about the only good thing that Australia could ever possibly do is annihilate its wretched existence with all of the minuscule military power that it even has. Australia is little more than an Orwellian dystopia, even more so than the vast majority of all other wretched Orwellian first world countries.

I would rather starve to death in excruciating agony than live in Australia for even a single second. No offense to the Australians here.

I really don't understand how anyone can vote for Kevin Rudd in this coming election.

Personally, my vote is more often determined by who I don't want rather than who I do. If there's a lot of people voting for Rudd this time, it's only because they dislike Abbott so much and you only really have those two choices.

Pretty much this. Abbott is a Draconian reptile, and Rudd is a private school prefect who is all smiles and shitty actions. We're doomed either way. A quote I love about these situations is "no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in", which was some graffiti in London in the 70's. So goddamn true.

Napoleon wrote:

Sorry but Australia is so horrible that utter self-destruction is presumably the only thing it can do to save itself. Australia is quite possibly the worst first world country in all of existence. I know I am repeating myself a bit here, but seemingly just about the only good thing that Australia could ever possibly do is annihilate its wretched existence with all of the minuscule military power that it even has. Australia is little more than an Orwellian dystopia, even more so than the vast majority of all other wretched Orwellian first world countries.

I would rather starve to death in excruciating agony than live in Australia for even a single second. No offense to the Australians here.

Sorry but Australia is so horrible that utter self-destruction is presumably the only thing it can do to save itself. Australia is quite possibly the worst first world country in all of existence. I know I am repeating myself a bit here, but seemingly just about the only good thing that Australia could ever possibly do is annihilate its wretched existence with all of the minuscule military power that it even has. Australia is little more than an Orwellian dystopia, even more so than the vast majority of all other wretched Orwellian first world countries.

I would rather starve to death in excruciating agony than live in Australia for even a single second. No offense to the Australians here.

Wow, could you maybe sell it a bit more? My wife is from Australia, so I sort of know the climate. And even though Rudd's a moron, he's much less of a moron/total assface than Abbott is. I mean, seriously, how could you even kind of think of voting for that prick? Really.

is this an actual thing? if so, it should be rolled out immediately across the entire world.

It's a website where you can answer "agree" or "disagree" or "skip" on political statements (with an option to weight answers doubly) and it tells you how close each party is to you in percentage (based on them taking the same survey). I'd be surprised if something like that doesn't exist in other countries.

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Metantoine wrote:

If Summoning is the sugar of fantasy metal, is Manowar the bacon?

CorpseFister wrote:

Personally, I prefer to know nothing of the esoteric hierarchy of MA and the profane rituals required to attain rank.

Kids and their silly naive political opinions make me cackle. The last six years have been a fucking disaster and follow the trend of governments of the left trashing the economy and leaving the conservatives with the bill and the job of fixing the mess. 108 million dollars a day fucking borrowed every day for the last six years. And people seriously want to vote for this lot of geese? I'm sorry kidlets but the conservative coalition will win about 53% of the two party preferred vote and guarantee them at least two terms. The Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government will be consigned to the dustbin of history and not even the rusted on leftists will be able to cast this sorry farce in any sort of a positive light when this period of history is written. Nine hours till polls open; bring it the fuck on!

Update: Oh dear, Newspoll has the 2pp at 54/46 to the Coalition. This means in excess of 25 seats changing hands. That could see the conservatives with 100 seats in the 150 seat parliament. And remember kids, Newspoll was within one decimal place of the 2010 result.

Yeah, the "a conservative government will fix the economy"-mindset is not naive at all! It has been proven right so many times in so many countries!

-edit- I don't know how it is on other cities, but here in Oldenburg I wonder who the hell is running the SPD's election campaign. EVERY other party at least has slogans on every sign they hang up, what does the SPD have? Their local candidate. NOTHING else. What are they trying to accomplish??

Well, if you want to bring our nationalities into play, let me do that as well: You live on a continent with one country. I live on a continent with 50 countries. How often have you seen people on your continent voting for a conservative government who promised to fix the economy, and how often do you think I have seen people on my continent voting for a conservative government who promised to fix the economy? Sorry dude, you might still believe that promise is worth anything because you have no real life experience with encountering it, but I have seen it I don't know how many times in my life time. The promises are always the same: Slash spending, that will bring jobs and economic progress, reduce the deficit, that will bring jobs and economic progress, slash taxes for the rich, that will bring jobs and economic progress, erode unions and workers' rights, that will bring jobs and economic progress. Every conservative party in the world makes those exact promises. But, have you ever looked at the jobless statistics or the economic growth statistics after they are elected and push through these foolproof measures? Yep, unemployment isn't reduced and the economy does not grow any more than it did under the center-left party. Look at any country in the world (which I guess is hard for you to do because "any country in the world" except NZ and Indonesia is thousands of miles from your borders), it is always the same story.

The outcome of this election looks worrying. As terrible Labor is with its cuts to tertiary education and horrible inhumane asylum seeker relocation policy, having a Liberal government will be even worse. At least the Labor government managed to keep the country's economy afloat during the Global Financial Crisis, thereby keeping the country from falling into recession and maintaining economic growth. The conservatives have no idea what they're doing and all they'll do is slash funding across the board and plunge the country into recession.

I'm not voting for either party, but anything is better than voting for Liberal. Apart from voting for a moderate or far-right party, of course.

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Zodijackyl wrote:

Civil has very strong and poorly substantiated opinions about anyone wielding jugs.

It always gives me a sad little chuckle when right-wingers perceive western governments as leftist, just because they have "labour" or "social" in their name. The German Social Democratic Party hasn't been social-democratic since, if we are generous, Gerhard Schröder. Not to mention that since then we are governed by the conservatives and neoliberals (which is not a leftist party at all despite being called liberals *shock* *sound of worldview shattering*). Don't get me started on those "liberals". The only reason people voted for them in the first place was the idiotic idea that they knew how to get the economy right because they are basically a club of businessmen. Who could have foreseen that the only thing they actually care about is helping their businessmen friends out so they'll fund them and secure them a nice little post-political career. But the FDP is just the most obvious case, all the big parties are like that. The result is the national economies going to shit because capitalists are left to do what they always do: Accumulate capital for themselves by fucking everyone over. It's worse than ever because financial gambling has become a low-risk game: If you screw up the taxpayers will bail you out. We have the conservatives, the (neo)liberals and the social democrats/labour parties of Europe to thank for that. They are no alternatives, they are all the same non-alternative.

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Metantoine wrote:

If Summoning is the sugar of fantasy metal, is Manowar the bacon?

CorpseFister wrote:

Personally, I prefer to know nothing of the esoteric hierarchy of MA and the profane rituals required to attain rank.

It's a website where you can answer "agree" or "disagree" or "skip" on political statements (with an option to weight answers doubly) and it tells you how close each party is to you in percentage (based on them taking the same survey). I'd be surprised if something like that doesn't exist in other countries.

oh, i thought it might've been a machine in the polling booth where you fill out a survey then it places your vote for you based on your views. but we had a similar thing here called vote compass, put you on the map next to the major parties.

also, the australian labor party is actually fairly left-wing these days. they've taken a hard-right stance on some social issues (asylum seekers, most notably) to try and appease the masses, but they're markedly more left right now than they were say, 10 years ago.

also, guy whose only issue is the economy: wish i could think like you do, mate. if all that spin regarding the economy had gotten to me (hint: we're in fantastic shape, don't need to be frugal) i'd probably vote liberal too.... wait, no i wouldn't, because they're also the fucking devil on social issues.

also, the australian labor party is actually fairly left-wing these days. they've taken a hard-right stance on some social issues (asylum seekers, most notably) to try and appease the masses, but they're markedly more left right now than they were say, 10 years ago.

also, guy whose only issue is the economy: wish i could think like you do, mate. if all that spin regarding the economy had gotten to me (hint: we're in fantastic shape, don't need to be frugal) i'd probably vote liberal too.... wait, no i wouldn't, because they're also the fucking devil on social issues.

I'll have to disagree with you there about Labor's position on the political spectrum. The Labor Party has been drifting to the right for the past 20 or 30 years, and you can see that from Paul Keating's implementation of mandatory detention up to today's Papua New Guinea 'solution'. In fact, modern Labor is closer to 80s Liberal under Malcolm Fraser than the Whitlam government. If you ask me, Labor's drift to the right is merely a way of attaining votes from marginal seats by appealing to swinging votes and, quite frankly, idiots.

Unless you were referring to someone else, it's strange that you say I only care about the economy since the issue I care about most are social policy. The economy isn't quite as important an issue to me as it is to others, but you at least need a government who knows how to maintain it.

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Zodijackyl wrote:

Civil has very strong and poorly substantiated opinions about anyone wielding jugs.

the ALP has done pretty well in terms of economy i think, they have been woeful on almost everything else but i dont trust the liberals with the economy and pretty much we need the NBN and if Abbott gets in we lose that which is a massive problem because that itself will hurt the economy, for me as a nation we need the NBN or at least faster internet i dont know how good the NBN is compared to other types of broadband they could use ALP tend to have some very good idea's but implement them poorly but the NBN will be cheaper and better than Abbott's plan

both main parties are still horrible, and i expect Abbott to get in but i still think almost anyone is better than him

1) He's crazy Clive and I wanna see some damn crazy.2) The more independents and minor parties around (in the Senate at least) the better3) Bob Katter is just a little bit too crazy4) Preference flows mean my House of Reps vote will flow to the LNP anyway, and probably in the Senate as well.5) Between all the craziness there's a couple of decent policies being thrown around by the PUP.6) Since I left SA for QLD, I can't vote for Nick Xenophon any more.7) HE'S GODDAMN CRAZY CLIVE.

But seriously, let's be realistic here. Australia is a remarkably stable country that basically revolves around a cycle of Labor throwing out new stuff, then the Coalition cutting it to a more sustainable level. Rinse, repeat. We're doing pretty well folks. Too many Abbot-doomsday scenarios going around.

1) He's crazy Clive and I wanna see some damn crazy.2) The more independents and minor parties around (in the Senate at least) the better3) Bob Katter is just a little bit too crazy4) Preference flows mean my House of Reps vote will flow to the LNP anyway, and probably in the Senate as well.5) Between all the craziness there's a couple of decent policies being thrown around by the PUP.6) Since I left SA for QLD, I can't vote for Nick Xenophon any more.7) HE'S GODDAMN CRAZY CLIVE.

But seriously, let's be realistic here. Australia is a remarkably stable country that basically revolves around a cycle of Labor throwing out new stuff, then the Coalition cutting it to a more sustainable level. Rinse, repeat. We're doing pretty well folks. Too many Abbot-doomsday scenarios going around.

i would take a Palmer/Katter co prime minster kinda thing just because it would be very entertaining, both are complete nutcases

the less power both Labor and Liberal have the better i think, for the most part anyway

Clive threw big dinosaurs on a golf course and is building a Titanic replica. It's that kind of flagrant throwing around of money for random awesome shit that I completely approve of.

But yeah, I think with 2010, and the number of minor parties and their advertising strength this election, as well as general disenchantment with the majors we'll see a bit of a swing with a good few seats over the whole parliament going to Greens/independents/KAP/PUP. It's a good thing really, let's the little guys help hold the big two (three if you want to count the Nationals separately...) to account.

But seriously, let's be realistic here. Australia is a remarkably stable country that basically revolves around a cycle of Labor throwing out new stuff, then the Coalition cutting it to a more sustainable level. Rinse, repeat. We're doing pretty well folks. Too many Abbot-doomsday scenarios going around.

I quite like this quote; I voted Labour (well, Greens than Labour), already well accepted that abbott will win but he won't drive Oz in the ground. The weather will still be good, there'll be waves to surf and beer will still be tasty. Really wish both of the main parties were less xenophobic though, that bums me out a fair bit.

i dont know how good the NBN is compared to other types of broadband they could use

For those uninitiated, NBN stands for National Broadband Network, which is being slowly rolled out across Australia . At the moment, Australian Broadband is at its maximum, 12MB per second by cable, or 24MB per second by ADSL. The NBN alledges speeds of up to 50MBS. This new broadband network network has been a hotly contested issue throughout the political campaign. Out of interest, how does this proposed internet speed compare with speeds overseas?

Terri, for comparison, Google are (slowly) rolling out Google Fiber. You can get a couple of options: 5 MBPS down/1 MBPS up for $300 (or $25/month for one year) and then have those same speeds for free for life, or pay $70/month for 1 GBPS down/up. No data caps on these.

I have Verizon FiOS @ 15 MBPS down/5 MPBS up. It was I think $55/month when I first signed up but has since gone up to $65/month. No data caps.